Archive for the 'News' Category

June 2, 2011

Police are now looking into a strong possibility that the shooting and robbing of an 18 year old man who responded to a Craigslist ad and that of the killing of Garret Berki a week earlier, are connected and was done by the same group of people preying on Craigslist users.
Three teenagers are being suspected in the killing of Berki who was residing in San Diego. San Diego police believes the gang is targeting people in the area who are looking for bargains and good deals at Craigslist. Investigators have found out that Garrett Berki planned to buy a set of computer when he met the three teenage suspects in Paradise Hills when the crime happened. 10 News in its pursuit of the story has obtained a search warrant for a person named Rashon Abernathy whom police are suspecting of being behind at least one phony Craigslist transaction in the weeks leading to Berki’s killing. Abernathy has posted an ad for a Macbook Pro for only $900. Abernathy was believed to have committed a robbery with a fellow gang member. The robbery victim then chased Abernathy and his cohort out of the park before Abernathy got a hold of his gun and pointed it at the robbery victim who then ran back to his car and called the police immediately afterward.

Abernathy has since became an person of interest by Police by virtue of a few other fake Craigslist ad and a number of robbery cases that happened upon meet ups of probable buyers and sellers who advertised at Craigslist.

February 28, 2011

Craigslist filed a lawsuit against eBay for creating an online advertising site that is closely similar with Craigslist. According to the free advertising site, eBay deceitfully hid their competing intention during their negotiation with Craigslist to buy a certain venture. eBay is a site that is known for helping people sell items online while Craigslist have a wider scoop of services.

The plea for dismissal of eBay was rejected by Judge Richard Kramer, according to him the complaint is complete with all kinds of fraud that occurred after the agreement was signed. Kramer is a Superior Court Judge in San Francisco. 28% of Craigslist was bought by eBay in 2004 and they then develop a classified advertisement site in 2007 that is very closely similar with Craigslist which is called the eBayClassifieds.com. The company believes that the lawsuit is only one of the anti-takeover defenses of Craigslist aiming to weaken the eBay’s role in their company.

The San Jose e-commerce company was also sued by the San Francisco Craigslist because of some confidential information that they used from the negotiation while preparing secretly to start a rival businesses.

eBay won the case in Delaware court and the Craigslist California lawsuit was put on hold until the Delaware case was decided and some Judge Kramer’s decision of rejecting the eBay’s plea because of the Delaware court’s findings.

Just recently a woman responded to a craigslist advertisement of a job as a house cleaner. The lady was very excited about the job because the employer informed her that he would give her a $2,400 check wherein she would get the $400 for her salary and the rest is for a painter that was supposed to fetch her and take her to the job site. It was later on discovered that she was a victim of another job posting scam on craigslist. According to Norma Miller a representative of a Better Business Bureau people should be very careful in answering some craigslist posting. There are some that criminal use to attract their victim. You must be very vigilant and think clearly when answering an advertisement. If you feel like the advertisement is too good to be true, probably it really is. Most scam offer huge pay for less work to be able to catch viewer’s attention you must be careful with names that you are not familiar with. Legitimate employers never give out money out front or even ask you to cash a check before working. It will be your first time reporting for work why would they trust you right away? And they would never let a stranger pick you up. They would always ask you to go to the job site with the address they provided. These are just a few things that you should consider before reporting or applying for a new job.

February 1, 2011

A craigslist couple finally tied the knot after 12 years of exchanging emails through an internet courtship. The couple are Scott & Nicole McIntyre. They first got in contact with each other in 1998 while they were chatting on Yahoo! Chat.
They both are in the U.S. at that time and are not far from each other but they never really met or even talked on the phone. They only exchanged emails and conversations online. But, eventually, they lost contact with each other until December of 2009. This was when Nicole posted for an ad on Craigslist under the “lost connections” section of Craigslist. She posted an ad in search for Scott, her long-time online friend.

Scott is not a Craigslist user and never really looked at the site. But one of his friends alerted him when he saw the ad. That friend wasn’t even close to him and he even had to search for Scott’s email through google. Scott said there’s a lot of chance that Nicole couldn’t have found him but she did. Scott answered her posting and they started to send emails to each other that rounds up to 500 emails a day!

Since December of last year, they had exchanged over 45,000 emails and Scott saved all these emails. At that time, Nicole was engaged to somebody else. But because she found Scott and they rekindled their online friendship again, she called off the wedding. She then married Scott in September in Las Vegas. They now live in Melbourne and plan to marry each other again next year.

A woman was arrested last week after the authorities in southwest Missouri saw an ad on Craigslist from a woman who intends on selling her baby. Alice Huff-Sims, a 29-year-old woman, is not mothering a child. She’d been stringing on three parties who wanted to pay to have her baby.

Police undercover acted as potential buyers of the baby and responded to her online ad. They met up at a local Mc Donald’s where Huff-Sims pretended to be pregnant with the child she intends on selling. The undercover policemen then paid her a “down payment” for the baby in her womb and they agree that Huff-Sims would receive the remaining amount once the baby is born. After that, the police then arrested her in the nearby parking lot and it was revealed that she is indeed not pregnant. They then discovered that this woman was also messaging three other potential buyers for her child. She has now been charged for felony stealing.

November 28, 2010

During Thanksgiving, we all feel so blessed and happy that we just can’t help but be thankful and be more giving to people who doesn’t have much in their lives. One woman, Rozilyn Collins, used craigslist to help others during this great and lovely evening of celebration. She prepared thanksgiving dinner for 60 people who saw her ad on Craigslist.

She initially planned on helping only 10 individuals but her Craigslist ad received about 60 responses saying they needed her free dinner. She cooked the meals and had them packed. Family and even strangers in the neighborhood also helped her out and even gave out donations to giveaway as well. She received food donations and even shoes and clothes from other Craigslist users.

November 18, 2010

Tracy Cochran and husband, Joe Cochran has been opening the doors to their home every Thanksgiving Day for six years now for anyone who would want to have free thanksgiving dinner. The Cochran couple from Derry, N.H. posts their heartfelt offer on the website Craigslist each year. Tracy Cochran cooks and serves home cooked meals in their kitchen for at least 20 families, while husband Joe, delivers the home cooked meals. A lot though come directly to their house and eat with them.

However, this year Tracy has been laid off from work, and the Cochran couple is clueless on how would they continue their kind gesture and holiday tradition this upcoming Thanksgiving Day.

“I want to be able to help everyone I helped before. When you have 50 emails coming in asking for help and you can only help out three, it’s kind of sad, because I would like to help out everybody,” Tracy Cochran almost tearfully said.

Regardless of the current unemployment of Tracy and the economic hardship the couple undergone this year, the Cochrans said they will still go on with their Thanksgiving tradition and will open their home for free dinner this year, even though the deliveries will have to be cut down. For the Cochrans, the best way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to help other families in dire need of a free Thanksgiving dinner.

The free meals may have to be limited but as long as the tradition at the Cochran’s household continues, there’s still a lot to be thankful about come Thanksgiving Day.

November 17, 2010

Big time sellers on online selling websites such as Craigslist and Ebay may be unknowingly putting themselves right in the crosshairs of the Internal Revenue Service or the IRS. One woman found out about this recently when the IRS claimed that she neglected to report a total of $41,000 earnings she received from auctioning items at online selling sites Craigslist and Ebay. The IRS now said, she owed a total of $15,000 in unpaid taxes. After a short hearing, a court backed up the findings of the IRS since the woman did really earn the money.

The IRS has implemented a procedure brought on by a new law, for those individuals earning more than $20,000 worth of items sold at Craigslist, Ebay and other online auctioning website and generate more than 200 electronic transactions should get an IRS form that they must fill up completely since this business transactions is considered taxable income.

This new law applies not only to online selling and auction websites, but garage sales and any classified ads that will produce a monetary earning to any person. The IRS has posted an article explaining all these new provisions and guidelines that will help people determine what constitutes a hobby or a business and which could be the definitive point in paying taxes or not.

Next time you auction items at Craigslist and other online auction websites, be in the know if you are covered by this new IRS provision so you could easily pay the right taxes and avoid the IRS taxmen to run after you in the future.

October 26, 2010

Lexinton police are investigating a robbery on a man who sold items on Craigslist Tuesday in Lexington, Kentucky. Police spokeswoman Sherelle Roberts indicated that the robbery was the third or the fourth instance of a crime committed that was hatched through Craigslist where people usually post items for sale or trade anonymously.

About 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, police received a call from an apartment complex parking lot located on 3500 block Laredo Drive. The caller told police that he had posted on Craigs list some items for sale and had driven to Laredo Drive to meet with the buyer.

Upon arriving at the scene, the victim relates that two men pointed a gun at him and robbed him of several expensive items which include; an iPad tablet computer, an iPod MP3 player, the victim’s wallet and an iPhone. It is still unclear what items that the victim is planning to sell to the disguised buyers who turned out to be robbers.

Sherelle Roberts cautioned Craigslist sellers and buyers to only agree in meeting buyers in safe, well lit and busy places during daytime and avoid meeting in isolated places where no witnesses are around to help you in cases that it becomes a robbery instead of a simple buy and sell transaction.

“Don’t go to people’s homes or secluded areas,” Roberts said. “If someone is not willing to meet you in a public place … then you should not do business with that person.”

The World Wide Web can be a useful tool to trade items to other people, but it can also become a tool of criminals, that’s why extra caution is needed whenever someone deals with anonymous people online.

September 9, 2010

There has been news that the DST investor and South African media conglomerate Naspers has purchased a share at the OLX which the co-founder of the company Alec Oxenford and Fabrice Grinda has confirmed. Expert say that it is one of the best moves the Naspers has made this year.

OLX is an online free classified company similar to craiglist. Though the company is having problem with competing with Craigslist in the United States it is making its name internationally. It is the current leading website in Asia and Latin America. It has about 125 million worldwide unique visitors per month. And it is available in 40 languages.

Although the investment amount of Naspers wasn’t disclose to the public it was estimated to be in-between the range of $20 to $40 million. The Naspers also did buy out shares from the previous OLX’s investors, namely The Founders Fund, Bessemer Venture Partners, Nexus Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners and DN Capital.